Pastor Scott Lively, seen here during an interview last year at The Republican, is considering a run for governor of Massachusetts.The Republican file | Mark M. Murray

SPRINGFIELD - A pending federal court lawsuit accusing him of crimes against humanity and a certain backlash from civil rights activists isn't enough to deter Pastor Scott Lively from mulling a run for governor.

Lively, a controversial Christian evangelist and founder of Abiding Truth Ministries, grabbed international attention with his anti-homosexual views that he took to Africa and beyond as a missionary, announced that he is considering a bid for the state's top office.

During an interview on Tuesday, Lively said he formed a dozen-member exploratory committee to consider the viability of a campaign for the 2014 election.

"I'm probably 90 percent sure that I'm going to do it, but I'm holding back that 10 percent," Lively said, adding that he is still undecided about whether he would run as an independent candidate, Republican or Democrat. "The third option is probably the least likely."

Ugandan gay rights advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda is suing Lively for crimes against humanity through persecution in U.S. District Court in Springfield. The lawsuit argues Lively's ministry stirred up anti-gay hysteria in the conservative, violence-riddled African nation by speaking there since 2002 on ways to sway gays "back" to heterosexuality.

It also argues Lively was effective enough to inspire widespread violence against gay rights activists there. He was among a group of U.S. evangelicals who spoke at a 2009 conference against the gay movement.

Lively and his lawyers have countered that the lawsuit distorts Lively's message and his intent, and that it is Lively's unshakeable First Amendment right to preach his beliefs, at any rate.

A hearing has not yet been scheduled in the case, but lawyers for both sides have filed voluminous arguments.

In terms of his potential political run, Lively said he is "greatly dismayed at the breakdown of family and morality" in Massachusetts.

While declining to name those he recruited for the exploratory committee, Lively said they met in Springfield on Sept. 10. He called the response to his possibly throwing his hat in the governor's race was "very positive" and that he was really testing the waters to see whether the conservative Christian right would back him.

"A lot of people were really happy with the idea," Lively said. "Really the first step is determining whether the conservative activists will get involved. Because if they don't, you really have no base and no chance."

Lively said he is undeterred by the pending federal lawsuit because he believes there is no way the plaintiffs can prevail.

He conceded that his announcement would spark new outrage among gay and civil rights activists, many of whom organized a large rally targeting his State Street coffee shop when the lawsuit was filed in March.

"I've always said I wouldn't run for public office because I wouldn't want to take the abuse. But I've already taken the abuse ... I had a much thinner skin when this all started," he said.

Lively is a Shelburne Falls native from a family of six. In a prepared statement and biography, he said he fell into alcoholism and drug addiction when he was 12.

"(Lively) drifted around the United States as a transient in his late teens and early 20s, sleeping under bridges and begging spare change to survive," the statement reads. "He accepted Jesus Christ as Savior in prayer in 1986 and was instantaneously completely healed."

Lively said his top three platforms would be abortion, fighting the "gay agenda" and education reform.